Quitter
by New Neon
Summary: Sanji's lighters keep going missing. A sort of sequal to Reactions  though you don't need to have read it . ZoSan established relationship


Like most smokers Sanji has many lighters hidden all around the place, some in coat pockets and some in favourite suit jackets. He had one by the door to the men's bunkroom so he could sneak out at night for a smoke, he had several in drawers in the galley. He wasn't even sure how many that he had, he didn't bother to count because he always had one when he needed it. Or he had anyway.

Which was why he was suddenly standing in the kitchen, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips and patting himself down and unable to find a lighter. He couldn't remember taking a lighter out of his jacket pocket and leaving it anywhere yesterday and he knew that he'd had it then, so where was it? But perhaps it'd fallen out, or perhaps Usopp had stolen it for some kind of experiment.

He shrugged to himself and opened the kitchen drawer, he always kept a lighter in there to light the gas stove top. He lit his cigarette and then lit the gas stove in quick succession. He drew in a deep smoky breath and hummed in satisfaction and thought nothing more about his missing lighter.

In the middle of the night he woke up with a pressing need to pee and a need to smoke. Sleepily he unfolded himself from his hammock and padded over to his suit jacket which was hanging up neatly by the door, unlike everyone else's shitty clothes which were in heaps on the floor. He ferreted around in the pockets for a few sleepy moments before he snagged a blessed stick.

Being blind in the dark he followed the wall with his hand, infinitely familiar with its wooden boards which led to the little shelf by the door which would contain his lighter. Or rather, should contain his lighter. He blindly felt the shelf in the dark, it was empty. Tracking his hand down the wall he felt the floor below it in case his lighter had been knocked off, but there was nothing there except clothes on the floor. He muttered curses to himself, even if his lighter was on the floor somewhere he'd never find it in the dark in this mess of a room. He resolved to look in the morning and headed out onto the lawn deck. He decided to head to the bathroom first to relieve his bladder before his craving.

He sighed in relief and tried vaguely to adjust his hair in the bathroom mirror with his one free hand whilst his bladder emptied itself. He frowned at the unlit cigarette in his reflection, if only he'd kept a lighter in here.

A memory sparked to life in his sleepy brain, he remembered that his lovely Nami-swan wanted a candle-lit bath a few weeks back and he'd valiantly offered her a lighter for that purpose. Perhaps she'd kept it in here with her candles! Excitedly he flushed the toilet and, after washing his hands of course, scrambled through the drawer by the sink. There was a broken in half toothbrush of Luffy's, a squeezed out tube of toothpaste, some cotton wool and- ah! Some almost burnt out tea-light candles and his shiny blue lighter in the back! He flicked the wheel and breathed in as the glorious smoke hit his lungs. He felt his body relax instantly.

He turned the little blue lighter around in his hand, he'd got this one in Water 7 before the whole situation had gone to shit as it always did. He felt glad that he'd bought it now and with a pleased little smile he set the little lighter down on the counter, at least he could always find this one if one of his other lighters went missing again.

The next morning when Sanji was getting up he decided to look for his missing lighter that was usually kept on his little shelf by the door. But he couldn't seem to find it anywhere.

Behind him the swordsman rolled out of his own hammock with a groan and stretched his back so deeply that even he could hear the popping of Zoro's spine from over by the door. Zoro was just in boxers and if Sanji weren't already _craving_ another smoke he might be more interested in that hard V of muscle that dives so temptingly into the swordsman's underwear.

"What," he says looking at Sanji, "the fuck are you doing down there?"

"Trying to find my lighter, you gonna help or what marimo?" he growled back, arching an eyebrow at Zoro. The swordsman seemed to consider this for a brief moment before answering.

"No." He said simply and pulled on his trousers. Sanji bristled at that, Zoro was just winding him up because he could and the shitty swordsman must know how much he needed a smoke and he was still denying him!

"I have no desire to dig through Franky's used pants at all, much less for your stupid lighter shit-cook." Zoro added, shoving his hands into his pockets as he stalked off outside.

Sanji glared at the retreating back of the swordsman, but he had a point. Rummaging around in dirty laundry for a lighter was hardly fun, besides, there was always that lighter in the kitchen drawer and speaking of he should really be cooking by now.

He was surprised to find Franky in the galley when he got there and HORRIFIED to find his precious oven in the middle of the room in several pieces. He must have let out a strangled scream because Franky looked up at him with a startled look on his face before smiling.

"Calm down and come check out the new one." Franky said with a grin. With some effort Sanji managed to tear his eyes away from his baby to look at where Franky was sitting. In the place of where his beloved oven had been was now a new sleek black looking thing.

"It's all electric, it's supposed to cook a little more evenly and it's a little more precise too. Zoro suggested that you might like it, make your job a little easier and that." Franky said proudly as he tapped the side of the new oven affectionately.

Sanji wasn't sure that his eyes could get any wider. The new oven was beautiful. He'd heard about electric ones of course, but he'd never actually seen one, but then again if anyone could build something like that from scratch on a ship then it'd be Franky. A thought occurred to him.

"Wait- Zoro asked you to do this?" Sanji blinked, feeling stunned.

"Yeah, I thought it was kind of sweet." Franky said, his mouth curling into a smile. Sanji might have agreed with him if the words 'sweet' and 'Zoro' could ever have been used in the same sentence.

At least he wouldn't risk singeing his hair on the flames of the hob when he couldn't find his lighter any more. With that thought his craving kicked back up again and put a cigarette in his mouth just as he opened the drawer by the new oven where he'd put his lighter yesterday. He needed a smoke and he needed it now.

His eyes widened, it wasn't there. Frantically he pulled the draw fully open and scrambled about inside of it with shaking hands, the full force of his craving was starting to burn nastily in his veins and he didn't like it.

"Did you take my lighter?" He snapped at Franky who paused in collecting his tools and spare oven parts from the floor. With a cocked eyebrow the shipwright looked up at him as if Sanji had lost his mind.

"No… why would I?" He asked slowly.

"You know! To light stuff?" Sanji shot back tensely. The shipwright straightened up and plucked the cigarette from Sanji's trembling lips. With apparently no effort a small jet of flame escaped the shipwright's lips and danced along the end of the cigarette, turning the tip cherry red. After a beat Franky handed the lit cigarette back to Sanji who eagerly took it back and inhaled a soothing breath.

"I don't need a lighter for anything." Franky stated, although that much was obvious now. Sanji tended to forget about Franky's odd ability to breathe fire at will, but it did make taking a lighter somewhat redundant.

He nodded and let out a shaky, smoky breath.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to snap." He muttered in apology as he felt the nasty hiss of his addiction dying down again.

"That's okay, feeling better?" Franky asked as he pushed his sunglasses up and giving Sanji a look that was obviously concerned.

"Yeah. Just… my lighters have been going missing. So I've not been able to smoke as much as usual, which makes me a bit twitchy. Maybe Usopp took them for some kind of idiot-scheme or an experiment." Sanji muttered, picturing Usopp's stupid grin and some sort of hideous taped together ball of lighters.

"I don't think so, he knows better than to piss you off. And besides, I'm sure he has his own for any experiments that he does. In fact I remember him having his own one." The shipwright replied in a voice that suggested that he was questioning Sanji's sanity.

"Meh, whatever. I'll ask him later, but for now I need to make pancakes on my new stove." He grinned. Testing out his new toy would be something that he could have a lot of fun with, he might actually have to thank the shitty swordsman for this later.

As expected his pancakes were wonderful, everyone enjoyed them. His lovely ladies wore pleased smiles and gave compliments, and even Zoro who had stopped pretending that he didn't like the cook's food since the two of them had got together had a small smile and a pleasant dusting of pink on his cheeks as he ate.

He reserved his question until the ladies had left and Luffy had bounced off with Chopper after determining that there was no more to eat. Franky was stacking up plates, although Zoro had growled at Franky when he tried to take his plate off of him and then continued lapping up syrup from his plate and cutlery like some kind of stupid green kitten.

"Usopp, did you steal my lighters?" He asked in a dangerous voice. Everyone in the room froze at that. Sanji saw Zoro's eyes slide sideways to regard the sharpshooter warily and he heard Franky mutter 'oh boy' under his breath.

"What? No. I've got my own, hey, check it out!" Usopp declared in that bright voice that he used when he was trying to be overly cheerful so he didn't have to recognise danger.

The long-nose rummaged in his bag for a few moments before pulling out a gun, Sanji was just about to ask Usopp what the hell he thought he was doing when Usopp pulled the trigger and a flame appeared at the end of the barrel.

"Pow! Look, isn't that cool?" Usopp exclaimed cheerfully. Sanji felt that the look on his own face and on the faces of everyone else in the room properly telegraphed how not cool his stupid lighter gun was.

"So, you didn't take my lighters?" Sanji repeated a little less tensely, it seemed pretty obvious now but he still needed a proper answer to that.

"Nope. But I'll keep my eye out for them." Usopp answered apparently happy at being off of the hook.

"Argh. Where are they going?" Sanji muttered to himself and rubbed his forehead, he could feel a stress headache coming on.

"Well, I think it's nap time." Zoro announced suddenly standing up. Sanji gave Zoro a disbelieving look, the stupid swordsman was the only person except for Luffy who could possibly eat that much syrup and go to sleep afterwards.

"Lazy swordsman." He muttered loudly.

"Stupid cook." Zoro shot back disinterestedly and sauntered out of the room. The two of them rarely put as much venom into their casual insults as they used to, not since they'd been together, not to say that they didn't have fights anymore but they were hardly as pointless.

Sanji rolled his shoulders in an attempt to dissipate some of the tension. Franky had already started washing up, but really he didn't feel like helping. He'd rather have a shower to relax his muscles and use his lighter to get a decent smoke whilst he was there too. It felt like far too long since he his cigarette.

"Can I leave that to you Franky? I'm gonna go have a shower and a smoke." He said looking over his shoulder at the cyborg.

"You know you can't do both at the same time right?" Franky snorted.

"I would if I could Franky, I would if I could." Sanji chuckled and headed off.

He decided to have his shower first, it felt nice to let the hot soothing spray of the shower pound his muscles into warm goo. And as he was towelling himself down afterwards he considered that the only thing that could make him feel any better was to have that smoke now.

He noticed that his little Water 7 lighter wasn't on the side where he left it last night but that was fine because someone had probably put it away by now. He slid open the little drawer and with a growing sense of horror and anger he realised that his little lighter wasn't there.

His spine snapped straight as he slammed the drawer shut. Someone was messing with him now, some stupid bastard was stealing his lighters he was absolutely sure of it! He threw on his clothes quickly, not caring that he was still damp in places. If someone was stealing his lighters then they'd take them from all of the places that they knew he kept them, like his suit pockets and by the door and in the kitchen. So he needed to look somewhere that only he knew about. Occasionally late at night he'd smoke and play the piano, he wasn't any good really, but it reminded him of late nights on the Baratie with music and smoke filled lungs and a sense of home.

He stomped into the aquarium room where the piano sat only to find Zoro spread out on the long cushioned bench on his back like some kind of giant cat. His trousers were riding low on his hips and he was sure that he could see a dusting of green fuzz sneaking out of the tops of those black trousers. That sight alone made him stop and look. Zoro slowly opened a dark eye to look at Sanji looking at him and he smiled a lazy pleased kind of smile at him.

"What're you doing down here?" He rumbled and arched his back in a sleepy stretch. Suddenly remembering what he _was_ doing down here, aside from ogling Zoro of course, he dashed to the piano. He lifted up the lid and stared inside. It was empty, or rather, it wasn't. The piano was still a piano inside but it was void entirely of lighters that would let him have sweet relief from his addicted cravings.

He swore and slammed the lid on the piano down so hard that the strings rang loudly.

"Stressed are we?" Zoro asked with a smug little smile on his face.

"Someone is _stealing_ my lighters. SOMEONE is going to die a slow and painful death when I find out who they are." He ground out furiously, how had they known about the piano?

"Nothing worse than a slow and painful death." Zoro said in a strange voice. Sanji looked at Zoro then, he was lit by the blue light from the aquarium from where he lay languidly on the seat. Zoro turned his head to him then and flashed him a bright smile.

"I'm sure I can cheer you up." He grinned with a suggestive shimmy of his hips.

Sanji considered it for a moment but he was so stressed and angry that anything that Zoro started would turn into the kind of angry violent sex where furniture got broken and people got inconvenient bite marks that stayed for weeks. And it was almost the middle of the day so doubtlessly someone would come looking for them, thinking that they were fighting and Sanji really didn't want to have to explain _that_.

He shook his head and Zoro shrugged and shut his eyes again, as if to say 'suit yourself'.

He left the aquarium room then and went on the hunt for any other lighter that he could find. An hour of frantic searching brought him no success. He started to think desperately about where there might be lighters or any open flame that he could light a cigarette on. The lights on the ship were no good, they were all electric, and now his stove was too so that was no good, why had Zoro talked Franky into replacing his stove now of all times? Ah! But Robin read by candlelight didn't she? Yes! She did!

He leapt up and bounded excitedly to Robin's room, the sting of addiction stabbing at his veins. Robin just happened to be leaving her room as he ran up to her.

"Thank god, Robin. Do you have a lighter? Mine have all gone missing and I remembered that you read by candle light so…" He trailed off, gasping for breath in his excitement and exertion.

"Of course Cook-san. Come in." Robin smiled at him and turned back into her room. At any other time Sanji might have been aflutter with the idea of being invited into a beautiful woman's bedroom but right now all his body was screaming for was a cigarette. Robin walked slinkily over to her desk. Sanji could see the half-burned candle resting in its special dish next to an old book.

"Oh, how strange." Robin mused as a frown graced her perfect features.

"What?" Sanji asked, his blood burning.

"My matches seem to have gone missing, I'm sure that they were right here when I went to bed last night. I always keep them in the same place." She frowned tapping the edge of the desk. He let out a frustrated scream and ran off. He needed to smoke. NOW.

As he burst onto the deck of the ship he saw Usopp sitting by the railings on the deck by the figurehead, apparently busy with some experiment. The image of that stupid gun lighter flashed through his head again and he ran at full speed towards Usopp.

"Gimmeyourlighternow!" Sanji yelled grabbing Usopp by the straps of his dungarees and shaking him.

"AAAH! Okay! Okay! It's in my bag!" Usopp yelped in fear and gestured to his bag behind him leaning against the railings. Sanji skidded over to the bag and grabbed it, thankfully it was already open and he stuck his hand inside desperately seeing the means to light his cigarettes. He was going to smoke five at once when he got the chance.

He growled in frustration, he couldn't find anything in this stupid bag, how on earth could Usopp find a damn thing? He tipped the bag upside down and shook it empty of its contents, he violently threw the bag aside ignoring Usopp's small protest at the action as he pawed through the mess on the floor. There were pellets of goodness knows what, slingshots, rubber bands and all manner of other crap but no distinctive gun lighter!

"What? Where is it?" Usopp blinked, apparently realising the same thing that Sanji had.

"I don't know!" He howled in agony.

"Did you do this?" He accused wildly, causing Usopp to back up in fear and shake his head urgently.

He yelled and ran off to the bunkroom, not caring that Franky had retired there to get some sleep apparently having been up all night installing the new oven.

"Franky! I need a lighter! Light this!" He cried desperately as he shook the cyborg out of his hammock and pulled a cigarette out of his jacket.

Franky landed on his ass and looked up at Sanji with a scowl on his face and his blue quaff flopped in his eyes.

"I am _not_ a human lighter." Franky growled and stood up, snatching his blanket and pillow out of his hammock as he stood up.

"Please!" Sanji begged at Franky's retreating back but the shipwright only flipped him off and slammed the door behind him.

In desperation he tore through his wardrobe for the second time, looking through every pocket in the vain hope that they might contain a miraculous lighter. But they were all empty.

He was close to breaking down in tears when he remembered his fanciest suit, he'd only worn it a few times on very special occasions and if he remembered correctly in his breast pocket of that suit had been a lighter that Nami had bought him as a present. It had a tangerine engraved in it and he'd always considered it too precious to actually use. But not now.

Manically he pulled apart the box that had been hidden behind his wardrobe in which lay his perfectly pressed suit. He stuffed his hand into the fine silk breast pocket and his fingers struck cool silver.

That first cigarette was almost better than sex. He felt close to orgasmically good as he slumped down on the floor and smoked half a pack without a break.

Still, he considered through the haze of smoke that he lay in, when he found out who stole his lighters there would be blood. He stuck the lighter in his pocket and vowed not to let it out of his sight, he would sleep with it if he had to.

As he cooked lunch he felt considerably better, if filled with suspicion over who stole his lighters. His mood brightened a little as Zoro entered the kitchen.

"Whatcha making?" Zoro asked as he sidled over to the cook. This had become an almost daily routine, he would be cooking and Zoro would sneak in and ask about the food and then see how much he could distract Sanji from cooking.

He smiled as Zoro wrapped his arms around him from behind but less than a second later the swordsman recoiled.

"Eugh, you smell burnt. What happened, someone set you on fire cook?" Zoro winced.

"Mmm, no. But I found one of my lighters at last. I smoked half a pack in one go, it felt _good_." Sanji purred and after a moment Zoro returned to Sanji's back and pressed a slow kiss against his neck.

"Sooo... soup?" Zoro said, apparently not venturing far enough to guess what kind, but Sanji was feeling happy enough to just tell him rather than torture the marimo into guessing and kicking him if he got it wrong.

"Chicken, and it will be the best goddamn soup you've ever eaten." He declared. He felt Zoro smile against his skin at that.

"I know." Zoro murmured and slid his hands into Sanji's pockets. He bit Sanji's ear with a laugh and-

What. The. Fuck.

Sanji kicked back at Zoro's legs hard, sending the swordsman flying back into the counter behind him. Sanji spun on his heel and glared at the startled swordsman who already had a clenched fist. A clenched fist. Not a hand on a sword, but a clenched fist. His foot flew up and kicked Zoro's hand hard. Sanji watched as Zoro's fist snapped open and a silver lighter sailed through the air and then clattered to the floor by the door.

He stared at the little silver lighter on the floor as his brain churned. It all made sense suddenly, Zoro had dozed off listening to him playing the piano once when he'd been smoking, he'd seen Usopp's gun lighter and he'd even asked Franky to remove his only source of flame in the kitchen!

"You." Sanji hissed, his eyes full of fire. He stepped closer to the frozen swordsman and threateningly pressed his knee to Zoro's crotch.

"You have two seconds to explain yourself before I lodge your balls permanently in your chest. One." He counted darkly, Zoro's skin rapidly paled.

"You never asked me how my mother died!" Zoro blurted out, eyes wide with fear.

That was enough of a fucking non-sequitur to make Sanji pause in his counting.

"What?" he said, because that was all you could say to something as random as that.

"You're such an idiot cook." Zoro muttered, dropping his head with a sigh.

"Not helping your case marimo. Explain." Sanji reminded him with an upward twitch of his knee.

"Shut up." Zoro snapped shoving Sanji back hard enough to make the cook have to drop his leg to keep his balance and his lower back connected painfully with the dials on his new oven. Zoro turned his head to the side and glared a hole in the fridge before sighing and speaking again.

"I never knew my father, so it was just me and my mother. She smoked, not even as much as you do, said it helped her calm down. That was until she hacked up half a lung and about two pints of blood and died." Zoro muttered unhappily.

Sanji felt all the rage drain out of him at that and his shoulders slumped defeatedly. Zoro's mother had died and he had been all on his own as a kid, he wondered how young he had been.

"How… how old were you?" He asked quietly, reaching out to touch Zoro, to try to make it better.

"Does it fucking matter?" Zoro snapped, batting Sanji's hand away.

"The point is, that people who smoke **die** and leave people who love them behind all alone! And I'm not letting that happen to me twice!" Zoro shouted and folded his arms as he turned his glare on the floor.

"What's the point in me trying to help you attain this stupid crazy dream of finding All-Blue if you're just gonna die before you get there? I won't let-" Zoro cut himself off with a shake of his head.

"Oh, Zoro." Sanji said softly and pressed his forehead to Zoro's. The stupid marimo had done what he'd done out of fear… out of love.

"You could have just _said_ something, idiot." He muttered with a laugh.

"You'd have laughed and told me to shut up." Zoro said darkly. Sanji's protest died on his lips, Zoro was right, he probably would have said that.

"Okay, I'll try to quit." Sanji breathed. Apparently this was the right answer because Zoro kissed him then.

"I take no responsibility for trying to kill you while I'm quitting though. And by the way, where did you hide my lighters?" Sanji asked curiously.

"I… didn't hide your lighters." Zoro said slowly. Sanji pulled back wide eyed at that.

"But, you stole them, didn't you?" He blinked feeling puzzled.

"Yes…" the swordsman answered uncomfortably.

"So, where are they?" Sanji prompted with a raised and curled eyebrow.

"Uh, they might be… kind of… in the ocean." Zoro mumbled turning slightly red and avoiding Sanji's disbelieving gaze.

"WHAT?" Sanji snapped bug eyed.


End file.
